Dutch Give Thumbs Down to Internet Gambling

April 3 - Tuesday saw the Dutch upper house parliament vote against allowing a monopoly operator to launch the country's first online gambling site. Dutch internet gambling proponents lost out by a narrow 37:35 that would have seen Holland Casino open the site to the general public on a trial basis.

In 2006, online gambling fans breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Dutch lower house voted in favor of allowing the site to launch. Holland Casino even went ahead and signed a partnership deal with software giant, CryptoLogic who was to power the new online casino. Tuesday's vote on Dutch internet gambling, however, put pay to all those plans.

Not everyone in the gambling industry is sorry about the parliamentary decision. If the law had been approved, other big operators, such as BWin, SportingBet and PartyGaming, who hold a substantial part of the Dutch online gambling market, would have had to move over to accommodate the new site. It is generally believed that Dutch players may have preferred a regulated site that had the official approval of the government.

The Dutch internet gambling situation is similar to those happening all over the Europe as the Continent grapples to come to terms with a growing interest in this industry and the legal repercussions. When the UIGEA was passed over the pond in 2006, online gambling operators were forced to seek out other markets, with Europe being an obvious first choice. New operators in the market, however, meant that European countries needed to make decisions about where they stood in terms of legalization.

Countries such as the United Kingdom realized that Prohibition was not the way to go, and introduced sweeping revolutionary new laws that essentially legalized and regulated the online gambling industry. Other countries such as Greece and Germany, however, are facing mounting pressure from the European Union to change their anti-gambling laws or face the consequences.